Here are the highlights from news conferences, rallies, and advocacy days held in the Capitol today:

Representatives of the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PA Med) held a conference call this morning to discuss physicians’ legislative priorities for the new legislative session. Karen Rizzo, MD, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society and a practicing otolaryngologist from Lancaster, remarked that she expects hundreds of bills that affect the health care arena to be introduced this session and highlighted the issues that are of particular interest to Pennsylvania’s physicians.

Senate Bill 180, which would update and expand when organ donations can occur in Pennsylvania, moved through the Senate Judiciary Committee with relative ease Thursday.

The prime sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery), is hoping the early movement of the bill will allow interested stakeholders—who sparred over the bill last session when it ultimately failed—to come to the table earlier to resolve their differences.

A constitutional amendment that would allow the General Assembly to define what organizations are institutions of purely public charity could put municipalities and currently designated charities in a state of uncertainty.

The amendment, currently in the form of Senate Bill 4, passed through the Senate Finance Committee Thursday morning with Democrats opposing the legislation. The constitutional amendment, which passed both chambers last session, would need to pass the General Assembly again this session in the same form before voters are given the final choice to amend the constitution.

After a Thursday morning Senate Finance Committee meeting, Majority Chairman John Eichelberger discussed what he would like to see happen with a constitutional amendment to SB 4. The amendment would clarify that lawmakers - and not courts - have authority to designate so called "purely public charities," nonprofits that generally do not pay real estate taxes.

While the new session brings with it fresh attitudes, two bills that were couched as consumer protection bills for natural gas land landowners that were passed out of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee Wednesday are likely to face the same issues that caused them to stall last session.